Elections in Portugal: Vote Against the Right and Step Up the Fight Against Capitalism

Discontent with living conditions in Portugal has been growing in recent months and years. The crises in the National Health Service (SNS) and the education system, caused by decades of disinvestment in public services and their professionals, are increasingly evident. In the last year, there have been several alarming reports about closed emergency rooms or absurd waiting times, the inability to fill vacancies in various medical specialties across the country and thousands of students left without a teacher for at least one subject.

Added to this is the loss of purchasing power by around 5.5% in 2023 compared to 2021, the growth in precariousness by 7.6% compared to 2022 affecting 740 thousand workers (17.4% of the total), and the housing crisis. Between 2022 and 2023, house prices in Portugal rose by an average of 8% and rents in new contracts rose by an average of 11%, with an increase of more than 20% in Lisbon.

For 2024, the “Socialist” Party (PS) government is allowing a 7% direct increase in rents for existing contracts. The official at-risk-of-poverty rate has risen to 17% in 2022, being 42% before social transfers! This represents the number of people with incomes of less than €591 a month, in a country where twice as much is needed for a decent life.

All this happened while the big companies and banks made record profits and different sectors of the national and foreign bourgeoisie compete for funds from the “Resilience and Recovery Plan (RRP) of the EU.

As a result of low wages and the high cost of living, Portugal is the country in Europe from which most people emigrate, with 30% of the population aged between 15 and 39 born in the country living abroad, according to a recent study.

It is against this backdrop, and after two years of an absolute PS majority, marked by the resignations of 11 secretaries of state and two ministers and the growth of discontent and protests, that Operation Influencer led to the resignation of António Costa on suspicions of corruption against the prime minister and his government. The fact that the PS government proved incapable of preventing the impact of the strikes in the health and education sectors and the growing mobilisations for the right to housing should cause fear among the ruling class.

This brings to an end 8 years of governments led by António Costa. Early parliamentary elections have been called for March 10th with the aim of forming a less fragile government, which is far from guaranteed.

The elections will not solve the problems of the working class, which are inherent to capitalism and Portugal’s position in the world market and the EU, and which cannot be changed by a parliament or a government that accepts capitalism. But the elections are an important moment in the class struggle, whose results will determine the context in which we fight in the coming period.

Despite the successive announcements of the PS government’s “successes”, the growing discontent with this party is becoming clearly apparent. The news of a fall in public debt to less than 100% of GDP, a budget surplus of 1.7% of GDP in 2023 (which represents a primary budget surplus of around 5% of GDP, and therefore austerity), the guarantee of future sustainability of the social security system and economic growth of 2.3% of GDP in 2023, above the EU’s 0.5%, do not alleviate the loss of living conditions in recent years and the breakdown of public services, but rather intensify the anger against the government.

With one week to go until the elections, the polls predict between 46% and 58% of the vote for the Right, between 22% and 33% for the PS and around 11% for the parties to its left, leaving the “Animals Party” (PAN) with around 2% of voting intentions.

The right wing vote is divided. It is predicted between 24% and 35% may vote for the “Democratic Alliance“ (AD) — a coalition of the main right-wing “Party of Social-Democrats” (PSD) with two small parties currently outside of parliament: the Christian conservative CDS and the monarchist PPM, which is led by a figure who publicly defends violence against women, but who has virtually no influence within AD. A further 16% to 19% goes to the far-right Chega and around 6% for the ultraliberal “Liberal Initiative” (IL).

On the left of the PS, around 5% goes to the Left Block (BE), 3% to the communist party PCP-led coalition (CDU) and 3% for Livre. This means that it is possible to elect a parliamentary majority on the Left, but it is more likely that the elections will result in a Right-wing majority dependent on the far-right or in an agreement between PS and PSD.

It also means that the discontent and the growth of the struggles have not had an impact on the voting intentions to the left of PS nor on the organisation of the necessary political instruments for the working masses. Instead, with the help of the media, the electoral campaign has been characterised by the Right’s agenda. It is the Right that has strengthened, which does not mean that there is significant support for the Right’s programmes.

The Right’s plans

Most of AD’s and IL’s intentions are relatively clear, representing the interests of an important part of the big bourgeoisie in advancing the intensification of exploitation faster than it has done in recent years. They plan to accelerate the commodification of health and education, benefiting from the erosion of public services left behind by the PS, primarily through public-private partnerships in hospitals and association contracts in schools, which will boost the growth of business groups in these sectors at the expense of public welfare.

No solution is presented for housing, only more opportunities for property speculators and the tourist business, the sectors that have profited most from the horrendous housing crisis. These parties also propose lowering property taxes and progressive, and therefore less unfair, taxes: personal income tax (IRS), from which a large part of the working class (who pay little or no IRS because they have low incomes) do not benefit; and the top rate of corporate profit tax (IRC), from which the biggest companies with the highest profits benefit.

What these parties don’t say is that these decreases in public revenue, if materialised, will lead to cuts in public spending and therefore to more attacks on public services that open up more business to private capital. Nor do they say that in recent years they have consistently opposed all policies in favour of workers: from increases in the minimum wage to reductions in the price of public transport passes.

Beyond the neoliberal agenda, AD’s campaign and past practice reveal a hidden threat to the rights of women, LGBTQI+ people and immigrants. Part of AD shows its intention to further limit the right to abortion, which in Portugal it is only available up till 10 weeks of pregnancy and it is difficult to find doctors who are not conscientious objectors, access to which was made difficult by the last right-wing government. The recent attempt by former PSD Prime Minister Passos Coelho to link immigrants and insecurity, against all the evidence, reveals a convergence between the traditional Right and the extreme Right, as is being seen in the rest of Europe.

In addition to the Right’s usual plans, there is also the dependence on the far right organised in Chega, which has already materialised in Azores in 2020 through an agreement between the PSD and this party. Chega is currently enjoying considerable growth in voting intentions (from 7% in the 2022 legislative elections to almost 20% in recent polls). This growth is supported by its media coverage, which in recent years has been comparable to that of the major parties, PS and PSD, but above all by the fact that it presents scapegoats and simple answers to unresolved social problems.

In a context of social crisis and the discrediting of political institutions, in which all the other parties (including those on the left, through the experience of the Contraption government, in which the PCP and BE gave support to a PS minority government) have been tested and are increasingly rejected, Chega presents itself as a novelty that is different from the parties of the system and can change everything.

Chega has been promising tax cuts at the same time as billions of euros are cut from public spending: an increase in the salaries of the security forces; an increase of up to 20% in the salaries of health professionals, which is ironic considering that Chega was advocating the total privatisation of the SNS until a few years ago; the equalisation of minimum pensions with the minimum wage; among other promises.

But between false promises and announcements about fighting corruption, Chega is revealing its true intentions. A good example is the proposal to cut 420 million euros in supposed public spending to “promote gender ideology”. The money in question is actually for the fight against gender inequalities and includes measures such as the reinforcement of family allowances, the extension of free childcare centres, free passes for under-18s and under-23s and the Solidarity Supplement for the Elderly. Another example is the immigrants who Chega says live off support that doesn’t exist, but who in reality are net contributors to social security, provide almost half of the unskilled labour in Portugal and whose labour the Chega MPs themselves exploit.

In fact, immigration to Portugal has grown, as has the number of cases of human trafficking, slavery, precarious housing and overcrowding. Their overexploitation has sustained the profits of a large part of the bourgeoisie: especially in the agricultural, livestock, hotel, fishing, and delivery sectors. Chega is taking advantage of the situation to divide the working class.

This is the real purpose of the far right: to whip up the reactionary petty bourgeoisie, which is desperate about its crisis in a capitalist economy it doesn’t control and rabid against any rights won by the working class, with speeches against “gender ideology” and immigrants. The number of recorded crimes of racist and LGBTQI+-phobic violence in Portugal increased by 38% in 2023 and a march “against the Islamisation of Europe” has been called for February 3rd to confront immigrants, especially Asians, in the area with the highest concentration of immigrant population in Lisbon. Although the organisation of a counter-demonstration prevented this direct intimidation, dozens of fascists paraded in another part of Lisbon, with torches, swastikas and a police escort.

While stirring up hatred, Chega deceives its voters about the true meaning of its programme. In this way, it attracts those voters who have lost hope by presenting itself as an anti-establishment party, while acrimoniously defending a programme of over-exploitation of those who finance the party: wealthy families and businessmen. As experiences around the world show, from Trump to Milei, the far-right is neither anti-system nor outside the system, it represents the worst of the capitalist system and its greatest defender.

Pedro Nuno Santos spearheads class conciliation

In addition to the traditional Right and the far-right, the ruling class is counting on the PS and its new leader Pedro Nuno Santos to represent class conciliation in these elections. Presenting himself as “the grandson of a shoemaker and the son of a shoe businessman”, Pedro Nuno Santos is trying to appeal directly to the working class, but also to layers of the small and medium-sized national industrial exporting bourgeoisie. They could benefit from greater state intervention in the economy, through the selective development of infrastructures and what Pedro Nuno Santos calls the promotion of national value chains, in line with the global trend towards increasing protectionism. One example is Pedro Nuno Santos’ commitment to a national technological development centre for the railways.

For the rest, what the PS has to offer is the same failed social democracy policy of recent years: it wants to maintain public services, but lets them languish by failing to invest seriously in conditions for its professional staff; it wants to improve access to housing, but only comes up with ineffective measures that don’t aim to control the market, but rather subsidise landlords and property speculators; it wants to maintain a major company like the state owned air company TAP, but at the cost of the sacrifices of its workers and its privatisation when it becomes profitable; it wants to promote the energy transition but leaves it to the market; it updates public sector salaries at rates below inflation; it prioritises the payment of public debt over investment in public services.

The conciliatory nature of the PS does not erase, but rather emphasises, its role as defender of the ruling class. What happened when Costa’s government fell in November 2023 as a result of a judicial investigation into lithium and hydrogen export deals clearly showed the capitalist character of the PS and Portugal’s peripheral and subservient position in the EU, in this case essentially as an exporter of raw materials for industries belonging to the strongest European bourgeoisies. Costa and the PS’s main concern was to give assurances that the investments targeted by the judicial investigation are safe, that lobbying works in Portugal and that the state will do everything it can to guarantee the accumulation of capital for these and future investors.

Having analysed this, the conciliatory PS is not able to stand up to reactionary Right, which will attack all the past gains of the oppressed. All those who want to avoid the implementation of the plans of the Right and the far-right should vote, as in previous elections, for the parliamentary Left, even the PS, with no illusions about being able to solve the problems of the working class by voting. In regions where it is possible to elect MPs to the left of PS, we prefer to vote for BE or CDU, to elect MPs who are more likely to defend the rights of the working class and the oppressed, in Portugal and abroad, especially when the masses take protest action.

The Left has not learnt all the lessons from Geringonça

To the left of the PS, the parties that put forward proposals for solutions for the working class and have participated in the social and labour struggles for better living conditions, BE and PCP in particular, have done nothing to constitute an alternative to the PS and the Right. On the contrary, BE is openly calling for an agreement with the PS, presenting it with convergence criteria that don’t clash with capitalism and that are supposed to be relatively easy to fulfil. While the PCP also praises the Contraption of 2016–2019 and tells us that it is the CDU’s electoral result that will be decisive in solving workers’ problems. The big message from both parties is that a PS government in a minority, dependent in parliament on the parties to its left, is better than a PS government with an absolute majority.

While it’s correct, given the lack of an alternative, to enable a PS government to prevent a Right-wing government, and it’s no lie that the Contraption years (2016–2019) brought better news for the working class than the last few years, we must draw the right lessons from this experience.

Despite the reversal of various austerity measures from previous years and various achievements, the Contraption was unable to guarantee the reversal of more structural policies to intensify capitalist exploitation, such as privatisations, the injection of public money into private banks, the rent law and the labour law. Precariousness and low wages continued to be the rule and housing prices soared unchecked during the Contraption years, along with property speculation. Public investment was greatly reduced during these years, as was investment in working conditions in public services, which ensured the continued decline of public health and education, that has justified the growth of private capital in these sectors. The policy of serving the interests of the bourgeoisie was not prevented by the agreements and parliamentary dependence of the PS on the Left. This failure still has very real consequences today in the housing, health and education crises that are devastating the lives of the working class. The political consequences of the Contraption and PS governments are also well known: disillusionment and loss of support on the left of the PS and the emergence and rise of the organised far-right, with Chega managing to show itself as opposed to the system, even though it is its biggest defender.

The gains made under the PS and the Contraption, such as the restoration of salaries and pensions, 35 hours per week in the public administration, increases in the minimum wage, free textbooks and childcare, lower prices for public transport passes and lower electricity bills for the poorest, are valuable, but they were the result of more favourable economic conditions and the huge mass struggles of the previous period and, like all gains in capitalism, they are reversible. In our opinion, the biggest mistake of the parties to the left of the PS in the Contraption was to not use the PS’s parliamentary weakness to put pressure on it through mass mobilisation and thus give workers the confidence to solve their problems through organisation and struggle.

In this period, BE and PCP kept their efforts limited to parliament and their commitment to the stability of the government and the supposed good management of capitalism and to social peace, which was a guarantee of stability for capitalist accumulation after the years of austerity by the Right.

Combativeness in the unions was contained by the CGTP (PCP-led trade union federation) whose leadership, along with those of the BE and PCP, betrayed the working class in important struggles, especially when they were led by unions outside the CGTP.

Leaders of these three organisations publicly attacked the strikes at the Volkswagen factory, the hazardous materials drivers’ strike and the nurses’ strike funds, just as in 2023 they attacked the education workers’ strike funds.

Let’s not forget that in 2019 we already saw the biggest attacks on the right to strike since 1974: minimum services set at 100%, the use of the police and military to break picket lines and replace strikers, judicial attacks on new unions, the persecution and detention of strikers. All the dirty tricks were used by the PS government, without the appropriate response from the CGTP, which would have been mass mobilisation for the right to strike! This contributed to normalising the idea that strikes shouldn’t disrupt the capitalist economy and that workers shouldn’t organise themselves financially to be able to strike and, of course, allowed opportunist figures to claim to support the workers that the left has abandoned.

During the pandemic crisis, in the PS’s second minority government, the parties on the left colluded with the “lay-off” policy that financed companies with public and social security money while workers’ wages were cut, at the same time as the SNS was overburdened, private healthcare took advantage to grow at its expense and patients suffered from lack of care.

We think it’s good that the parties to the left of the PS are now trying to point out minimum criteria for the viability of a PS government in order to prevent the plans of the Right, as BE has been doing in relation to wages, housing, care, health, education and the climate. But these criteria must go beyond a defence of wages and public services that the PS itself wants to make and, above all, the application of these criteria must be based on the strength of the working class and not on parliamentary gamesmanship.

It is through the mobilisation of the masses and the strength of the strike that a balance of power can be built that allows for real victories, whatever the government, but especially in the case of a minority PS government in a situation of parliamentary fragility. It is also through this practice that the working class will be able to draw conclusions about the need to better organise itself and overcome capitalism.

In the year of the 50th anniversary of the revolution, it is worth remembering that workers’ conquests were the result of their mobilisation and organisation in 1974/75: the soldiers refused to continue the colonial war and, through assemblies and committees, sided with the workers; the Workers’ Committees and trade unions, through strikes and occupations, won wage increases and the nationalisation of banking and strategic sectors of the economy; the latifundia were occupied by the agricultural proletariat; the Residents’ Committees, through occupations of empty houses and self-organisation, began to put an end to slums and build affordable housing; teachers and literacy missions began to build public, universal and free education; doctors and hospital staff began to build the free NHS and extend it to the whole country.

Today, victories that really improve the living conditions of the majority of the population and the future of young people will only be possible if working class organisations confront the capitalist system itself: if they challenge the property rights of real estate funds in favour of public housing, if they confront the commodification of health and education that is destroying public services, if they attack EU rules and financial speculation in favour of nationalising the banks and planning the economy to serve social and environmental needs! Without that, if it just wants to manage capitalism better, the Left won’t be able to do much different from what the PS has been doing.

In the coming period, whatever the government, let’s get ready to fight for better living conditions for all and for a political alternative of the working class! An alternative that organises unity against the threats of the far-right, that takes on feminism and anti-racism, that is based on labour and social struggles, on the streets, in neighbourhoods and in workplaces, that defends combative trade unionism and confronts the capitalist system with a programme that includes the demands:

• Rent control and affordable prices for essential goods!
• General increase in wages and pensions. Indexation of wages and pensions above inflation, in the public and private sectors. Immediate increase of all wages by €1.5/hour.
• Progressive taxation of profits and large fortunes to finance investment in free public services, their professionals, and a just transition: transport, childcare, schools, canteens, retirement homes, housing and healthcare.
• Housing, health and education are rights, not commodities! Expropriation of property funds and agencies, big landlords and vacant houses, as well as major health and education infrastructures that are lacking for public services.
• Massive public housing under the control of residents’ and workers’ committees: nationalisation of the big construction companies in order to rehabilitate, maintain and build quality, comfortable housing at affordable rents, guaranteeing decent housing for all.
• Guaranteed abortion rights up to 14 weeks of pregnancy! Investment in obstetric services in the SNS.
• Lowering the retirement age for those who have done strenuous work.
• An end to bogus term contracts and green receipts.
• Equal rights for immigrants: Guaranteed public services, housing and decent jobs for all.
• We don’t control what we don’t own: nationalisation of the distribution and energy sectors under democratic control!
• For price controls that are fair for those who produce and those who consume.
• For an energy transition that defends the environment and the workers, with 100% renewable and affordable energy, against big projects that harm the environment and communities.
• Zero interest on first home loans. Nationalisation of the financial sector to control interest, credit and capital flows and to fund socially necessary investments.
• Against war and imperialism, for peoples’ rights to self-determination, for international working-class solidarity to build a socialist alternative to capitalist barbarism!